than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn; with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If then you found me worthy of such honour, good your grace let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of mine enemies, withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal heart towards your good grace ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter. Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame ; then shall you see either mine innocence cleared, your suspicion and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that whatsoever God or you may determine of me, your grace may be freed from an open censure; and mine offence being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection already settled on that party for whose sake I am now as I am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto, your grace not being ignorant of my suspicion therein.

"But, if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander, must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness, then I desire of God that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof, and that he will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment-seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, and in whose judgment I doubt not, whatsoever the world may think of me, mine innocence shall be openly known and sufficiently cleared. My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen who, as I understand, are likewise in strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any farther, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct

you in all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May.

Your most loyal and ever faithful wife,

ANNE BOLEYN."

This address, so pathetic and eloquent, failed to touch the heart of a tyrant, whom licentious and selfish gratification had steeled. The queen was condemned to be either burnt or beheaded; and she underwent the latter on the 19th of May, 1536. Her last behaviour was a mixture of firmness and singular levity. On the morning of her execution, conversing with the lieutenant of the Tower on what she was going to suffer, he endeavoured to comfort her by the shortness of its duration. "The executioner, indeed," replied she, "I am told, is very expert, and I have but a slender neck;" grasping it with her hand and smiling. She confessed to various indiscretions, but constantly denied any serious guilt. How far her innocence extended as to the charge for which she lost her life, may be a subject of doubt; but, on the whole, it seems much less certain that she was criminal, than that her husband was a capricious and bloody tyrant.

JANE SEYMOUR, was married to Henry VIII., in May 1536, and died in child-bed of Edward VI., October, 1537.

ANNE OF CLEVES, the wife of Henry VIII., of England, was the daughter of John III., duke of Cleves. A portrait of her, drawn by Holbein, having been shown to the English monarch by Thomas lord Cromwell, he demanded her in marriage, but it was not long before he was disgusted with the "Flanders Mare," as he contemptuously called her, and a divorce ensued. Anne, without seeming much disconcerted, returned to her own country, where she died in 1557.

CATHERINE HOWARD, fifth wife of Henry VIII., of England, was daughter of lord Edmund Howard, and Joyce, daughter of Sir Richard Culpepper, of Hollingbourne in Kent, knight. Henry VIII., upon his divorce from Anne of Cleves, made her his wife. This marriage proved prejudicial to the cause of the Reformation, as Catherine was no friend to the Protestants. She gained such an ascendancy over the king's heart, that he gave public thanks to God for the happiness he enjoyed by her means, and desired his confessor, the bishop of Lincoln, to join with him in the like thanksgiving.

But this proved a very short-lived satisfaction, for the next day, archbishop Cranmer came to him with information that the queen had been unfaithful to his bed. The king's attachment to the queen, inclined him at first to discredit the story, but having full proof, the persons with whom the queen had been guilty, Dierham and Mannoch, two of the duchess dowager of Norfolk's domestics, were apprehended, and not only

confessed whatever was laid to their charge, but revealed some other circumstances, which placed the guilt of the queen in a most heinous light. This account so affected the king, that he shed tears. It now came to light that the conduct of the queen had been loose before marriage. She was tried, found guilty, and beheaded on Tower-hill, about seventeen months after she had been married to the king. The queen confessed the miscarriages of her former life before marriage, which had brought her to this fatal end; but protested to Dr. White, afterwards bishop of Winchester, that she took God and his angels to be her witnesses, upon the salvation of her soul, that she was guiltless of the charge of defiling her sovereign's bed. CATHERINE PARR, sixth and last queen to Henry VIII., was the daughter of Sir Thomas Parr, and was married first to Edward Burke, and secondly to John Neville, lord Latimer, whose widow she was when Henry married her. She was early educated in polite literature, as was the fashion of noble women at that time in England, and in her riper years she applied herself much to the reading and the study of the Holy Scriptures. She favoured the reformed religion, and was well skilled in theological controversy. The king was not well pleased with her religious conversation, and observed, "A good hearing it is, when women become such clerks! and a thing much to my comfort, to come in mine old age to be taught by my wife!" The bishop of Winchester falsely accused the queen of treason and heresy; and the king was prevailed upon to give a warrant to draw up articles to touch her life. The day and hour was appointed, when she was to be seized; but the design being accidentally discovered to her, she waited upon the king, who received her kindly, and purposely began a discourse about religion. She answered, "that women by their creation at first, were made subject to men; that they, being made after the image of God, as the women were after their image, ought to instruct their wives, who were to learn of them; and she was much more to be taught of his majesty, who was a prince of such excellent learning and wisdom." "Not so, by St. Mary," said the king, "you have become a doctor, Kate, able to instruct us; and not to be instructed by us." To which she replied, "that it seemed he had much mistaken her freedom in arguing with him, since she did it to engage him in discourse, to amuse this painful time of his infirmity, and that she might receive profit by his learned discourse, in which last point she had not missed her aim, always referring herself in these matters, as she ought to do, to his majesty." "And is it even so, sweetheart?" said the king, "then we are perfect friends again." The day which had been appointed for carrying her to the Tower being fine, the king took a walk in the garden, and sent for the queen. As they were together, the lord chancellor,

who was ignorant of the reconciliation, came with the guards. The king stepped aside to him, and after a little discourse, was heard to call him, "Knave, aye, arrant knave, a fool, a beast ;" and bid him presently avaunt out of his sight. The queen not knowing on what errand they came, endeavoured, with gentle words, to mollify the king's anger. "Ah! poor

soul," said the king, "thou little knowest how ill he deserves this at thy hands; on my word, sweet-heart, he has been toward thee an arrant knave; and so let him go." The king, as a mark of his affection, left her a legacy of 4000l. besides her jointure. She was afterwards married to Sir Thomas Seymour, lord admiral of England, and uncle to Edward VI., but she lived a very short time, and that unhappily, with this gentleman. She died in 1548, in child-bed; though, as some writers observe, not without a suspicion of poison, to make way for Seymour's marriage with the princess Elizabeth. Queen Catherine Parr, was the authoress of several pious tracts.

THOMAS WOLSEY, was born at Ipswich in Suffolk, in 1471. He was not the son of a butcher as reported, but descended from a poor family, and he entered so early at Oxford, that he was Bachelor of Arts at fourteen, and consequently called the boy bachelor. He became fellow of Magdalen college, and exchanged the care of Magdalen school for the tuition of the sons of the Marquis of Dorset. He obtained the rectory of Lymington in Somersetshire, but here he was so irregular, that he was set in the stocks for being drunk on a Sunday, by Paulet, a punishment severely visited on the magistrate by a long imprisonment, when the offending clergyman was in power. After the death of Dorset he was noticed by Dean, archbishop of Canterbury, and became chaplain to the king, by whom he was entrusted with the negociation of his marriage with Margaret of Savoy. He used such despatch in this business, that he was rewarded with the deanery of Lincoln. The death of Henry VII., proved no obstacle to his further promotion; for Fox, bishop of Winchester, fearing to be supplanted in the favour of the new king, Henry VIII, by the earl of Surrey, introduced Wolsey to him, as a person well qualified to obtain his confidence. He acted his part so skilfully in this situation, enlivening by his unrestrained gaiety the young king's hours of pleasure, and introducing at proper times matters of business, in which he insinuated into his mind. jealousies of the authority of his father's ministers, that he shortly acquired the first place in the royal favour, and became uncontroled minister. His advancement was rapid. He was brought, in 1510, into the privy council, was made reporter of the star-chamber, and registrar, and afterwards chancellor of the garter; ecclesiastical preferments were profusely accumulated upon him, of which the principal were

the bishoprics of Tournay and Lincoln in 1513, and the archbishopric of York in 1514. In 1515, the pope, in order to secure in his interest a person so high in his master's good graces, elevated him to the dignity of cardinal. Naturally proud and ostentatious, it is no wonder that this tide of fortune carried him beyond the bounds of moderation. No English ecclesiastic ever took so much state upon himself. He had a train of 800 servants, many of whom were knights or gentle men. Even some of the nobility sent their sons into his family for education, and did not disdain to pay their court by suf fering them to act as his menials. His equipage and furniture were of the most costly kind; and he not only wore silk and gold in his own habits, but decorated his saddles and the trappings of his horses with them. A tall priest bore before him a silver pillar surmounted with a cross; and his cardinal's hat was carried by a person of rank, and in the king's chapel was reposited nowhere but upon the altar. It was the best part of his magnificence that he was a generous patron of men of letters, and a promoter of learning as well by public institutions, as by private bounties. His power and self-consequence, were much enhanced by being nominated the pope's legate a latere, which gave him legal pre-eminence over the archbishop of Canterbury, and supreme authority in all church affairs. He had already usurped upon the primate Warham's dignity, by bearing his cross aloft in the province of Canterbury. He now complained of Warham's presumption for styling himself in a letter, "Your loving brother;" which offence being mentioned to that respectable prelate, he said, " Know ye not that this man is drunk with too much prosperity?" Warham soon after, tired of contention, resigned his office of high chancellor, to which Wolsey was appointed in December, 1515. To these favours were added the confidence of the king, and consequently the disposal of all places of trust and power in the kingdom. Thus, at the head of affairs, he governed the nation at his pleasure, and that he might confirm more strongly his ascendancy over the king, he withdrew his attention from public affairs, and fanning his pleasures, administered liberally to the gratification of his most licentious desires. Absolute at home, where his expenses exceeded the revenues of the crown, he was flattered by foreign princes, and according to his caprice or avarice, the support of England promised to favour either the views of France, or of Germany, or of the pope. His disappointment in his application for the popedom after Leo X., in which he was deceived by the emperor, was followed by the displeasure of his master, who in the matter of his divorce, expected from him an obsequious assistant. The cardinal, afraid of the pope and the king, wished to stand neuter, but Henry, indignant at this, stripped him of his honours in 1529.